Plane and sleeping horror to come tomorrow.
What not to do - no, scratch that. What to do with a credit card and an afternoon spare. Get the 180 from San Jose Civic Centre to Freemont, then get the Richmond Bart to Berkeley (misnamed as "Downtown Berkeley" on the maps). Get off, buy cup of peppermint tea to go at the coffee shop on the way, before finding "Comic Relief". Say hi to Rory the Manager with a wonky tooth and spending nigh on $175 on comics and books.
(Sob) what have they done to me, these bloody people! I can't be let near anywhere selling dead wood media! Curses. So, am I going to be a biiitttt geeky and give you the run down of the books? Well - sort of.
I bought a whole lot of Weasel back copies. Dave Cooper is a gross and disgusting artist whose work (particularly in the "Dan and Larry" type titles) seems to be suppurating with a kind of sweating and grubby life of its own. It's quite frankly, the most stunningly original work I've read in years. He's fantastic. I stopped short of getting the newest Weasel, which went a bit too far even for me. Sweating, bug eyed alien looking women in vests with Crumb asses, peanut nipples and buck teeth, fondling each other? Hmmmmmmmm I theenk I shall skip that one. Got a few Chester Brown titles (ugh, I loatghe the new D&Q site. So unmanageable); Pete Bagge's got a new thing out, (at fucking last) which is good to look at if only because he's so comfortable to read. There's nothing desperately new in it but it's fucking funny all the same. He does some nice un-ordinary tricks at the back end. It's called "Sweatshop." ERmmmmm Also bought "Shutterbug follies" - possibly the worst title I've ever heard for a very beautifully drawn / inked etc and pretty well written "Rear Window"-esque thriller, as well as
By far the best thing I've read so far is an insane and hilarious / bizarre wee thing, a reprint of James Kochalka's first graphic novel, published by Top Shelf (who are lovely people. well, person, basically - Chris Staros. Top man all round). Top Shelf punlished "Goodbye Chunky Rice" which is just a gorgeous, stunningly lovely book about friendship. I'd sooooo recommend it. Anyway, "magic boy and the Robot Elf" is fucking crazy nonsense, which is exactly why it's so good. It's very, very funny. And have extremely bad acid stomach right now. Coughing all the time and it hurts like hell! Maybe I should cut down on the rice. I had sushi today and a lovely veggie burrito (not as good as the place near Leslie, but still pretty good for $3.25. You know, the MacDonalds opposite had loads of people in but this place had 3 including me. 5 if you count the staff. The world makes no sense. Anyway. White rice is reasonably acidic. Sigh. So - go to Comic Relief, then go get a burrito from the corner Mexican joint before reading your wares on the Bart back home, asking the guy at Freemont to tell you when you get to the Civic Centre and returning to 2nd Street, utterly, and almost incapably exhausted. One day I'll do some sort of top ten run down but it's relatively easy to work out who my favourite comic writers and artists would be if I state that most of my purchases come from D&Q and fantagraphics. Ah, Bagge and Clowes, no? Joe Matt, oui? Dan Clowes I have seriously worshipped for years. In a slightly sad semi-Woody Allen type way, I almost prefer his siller early semi-autobiographical work (Lloyd Llewellyn etc). Then I suddenly realised that Vertigo existed when Ian showed me Transmet and The Invisibles - which blew me away completely. Such brash, cocky and brilliant storytelling. I'd entirely forgotten about Morrison or indeed in fact that he wrote "Zenith" in 2000AD in the last days of the glory years. So I just saturated myself in The Invisibles as much as I could, it's fucking fantastic. And as for Ellis. Well he's testosterone filled bloke who doesn't do superhero comics, so look what fucked up weirdness comes out instead. I adore Planetary. It's superb. And Transmetropolitan is going to be very difficult to overcome in the fame / storytelling stakes for a good wee while. Astoundingly, I read 3 of the collections in 1 sitting. It nearly caused severe brain damage. Warren - sort out Planetary. What are you going to do with it? They deserve to die in battle well, these people. Or at least do something (yes, I know why...) Damn, Quinn has cooked me soup. No, oh good, Quinn has cooked me soup. I must go now I'm on a roll. I shall return to this run down another time.
Aaaaand some Palookaville and this and that....
Cory's photos including one of me sans surname (I don't have a "brand name", that's my trouble). Luckily the picture is so far off, it doesn't show my *extreme exhaustion* at that point. Meanwhile, you can see the somewhat mad array of people who went to Dan's party. Doc! Cantor! Etc! A whole slew of people who are quite literally not known in any other context.
In other news, everything seems to be outgoing reasonably well in the down-there run of things (mostly due to finding ways I could get hold of fruit at the otherwise fruit-free hotel experience).
Other photos, I forgot to put the ones from Sunday up in here, I'll go back and put the link in later on the day. It isn't Prosidio park it's some other park with lots of "o"s in.
Now I am at Norbert et al's having a very chilled out Saturday night. Which is exactly what is needed. More geeks are here but god knows who they are! A book reading for a book I didn't have a chance to get should be going ahead, but it looks like we might all go for a meal instead (yay! back to the Ethiopian restaurant!).
Oh yes - clash of cultures. We were discussing American paper shopping bags at the conf on Friday. I invoked two images / sounds from films: the Odd Couple soundtrack and straining spaghetti through a tennis racquet - you know that, right? The Apartment, right????? I mean - why did literally no one in my group know what I was talking about! Well. Strange for me, anyway. I think I live with films in my head far too much. It does remind me of that absolutely awful old television series where the guy lived with '50's TV in his head.
So I'm walking down the road with two of the loveliest people. Phil and Matt Webb (I have to say his surname because he's not 'Jones'). And we're being very silly and giggly about Micro-Celebrities which is a nonsense term for people... er, who are well known in this circle but not outside it - but the miracle of the interweb makes them seem sooo much more important. Ahem. Which was part of the humour of it. Phil was namechecked quite heavily in Clay's Keynote this morning so we were (obviously, because we're from London) taking the piss out of him, and it all got very silly.
So we go to an Ethiopian restaurant to eat - very nice but not very hot - and in walk 4 geeks. We mildly laugh about the fact that we should be wearing our nametags, and then Matt notices as we leave that one of them was - gasp! Justin Hall!
So we tried to goggle through the window at him, being very stupid. Hilariously, given the meaning of all this micro-celebrity shit, I was telling this story to Jones and JPC today and - brilliantly, neither of them knew who Justin Hall was. Which was perfect.
I have to say, despite the knackeredness and being sick on Saturday, it has been such extraordinary fun hanging out with my mates for days and calling it work. So good to be around people for whom I have so much more than just affection.
From Ambiguous, Guantanamo Bay misery. 13 year old children being held in single cell confinement.
I live in a western world completely unable to accept it's own inhumanity.
So we're sitting waiting for Matt and James to start their talk on BBCness - we're missing a talk on Smart Dust and Robot flies to do some cheerleading. The tech isn't working at the moment so no slides! Horror!
James is quite quiet - ah, they've sorted all that out now. Poor bastards! This is painful!
So JPC's talking about why people could be turned off by politics. A guy in the audience has suggested distributing the slides now and letting people see them on their own computers. Good idea in theory, however the slides are absolutely massive apparently.
Matt, bless him, is holding great swathes of microphone lead in one hand to help him focus and not go off in to a spiral of bleh.
Ahhh.... now it works. Matt should really shut up for a minute because there are 4 people trying to work out the gizmo stuff at the desk at the front.
"it's quite big and it's hard". That is not something to say on the stage given that it sounds like a punchline.
"We make ourselves stupid in order to make the computer software seem smart". Shouldn't the software seem easy, not smart?
Ok. Notes on the next one regarding Groups are in the extended section. "What groups will be"
Games and Social interaction afterwards.
David Weinberger is a very "playing to the crowd" speaker.
He's going to be using "friendster" as an example - but that is only vaguely group oriented - well... I think I'm wrong there but anyway.
Premis is:
1) Groups are great
2) Groups are crap on the internet
....what?? Which groups? What is he talking about? He's saying that all his groups are independent and different URL's.
So the net's not very good at handling groups... "which is exactly as it should be" - eh? I think this man is talking gibberish.
He's also talking off his script which is only bullet points. He may be a well known guy, but he's stumbling through this, talking about "end to end" but not really focusing it at all.
This is an almost entirely pointless talk! He's werritting about the fact that people have to state their favourite books. "we, literally, don't know what we're interested in". Er... you may not do, mate.
He does make a good point about self censorship however - what do you state publicly that you like.
"it assumes there is only one me, whereas in fact, there should be multiple me's".
Funny - Doc Searle leaves. David w; "Doc's walking, ok it's all over." Doc: "Come on Dave, let's leave these people!"
In losing ambiguity you lose the richness of social interaction.
"You can't disentangle the technical from the social". Ian Pringle is chewing the most disgusting chewing gum next to me. Horrible nausea inducing smell. I'll be nice and not say anything though.
Constitution needs the ambiguity so it can change as needed
This talk is about almost literally nothing at all.
By the way, talking about something completely different - the Social Software Alliance have a section on the front page of their wiki with "Sightings in blogs". Whohoo, well that's really important then isn't it! A bunch of people at the BoF wrote it up afterwards! I'm griping for no reason, really. But it is very amusing to me.
Difference between implicit and explicit knowledge. That's actually an interesting point that moves toward something we were talking about on Monday at FT to do with giving groups the opportunity to be "expert" groups in some way. I like the idea of that.
I wonder whether the same people end up giving talks year after year because it's a geek convention ie: there are a certain type of people here who actually can't get up and speak because they're too shy.
So this comes down to the fact that he's worried about digital ID and how you can have various different digital selves or that you should be.
"We're absolutely in the beginning of this" - social software. Well - er, kinda, but kind of not. Mail lists? "why is there a big buzz about this now" - because things are cyclical? "maybe we're coming out of our infatuation with bytes". "maybe we're ready to embrace ambiguity".
Hmmmmmmmmm I think not, my friend.
Ok, a very nice, friendly talk but absolutely nothing to do with emerging tech in any way shape or form!!! Not a hell of a lot to do with anything much, in fact.
----------------------
Games / Social infrastructure - Chris DiBona
Can escapism exist without consequences?
Can escapism exist with consequences?
What constitutes something actionally bad from a game developer perspective?
-Scripting/Macroing
-Mapping
What constitutes something actionably bad from a player perspective?
-Moral considerations?
-Real world Fraud?
-Some carrot, very little stick
Course behaviour modification arsenal:
-Account deletion
-Character deletion
-Account deletion
"all this is extremely coarse... but what are you going to do, go to some guy's house?"
People who like killing other players and people who don't like to kill and don't want to be killed should be able to mix.
-People who are strong on interaction & building are less likely to be people killers
-"gamers" are more likely to be PK's. How do you make non killing and killing rewarding in the game in the right way?
-People ahould be able to change what they want to be - a PK, or a non-PK.
They've put in switching back and forth but they also put longer and longer moments in to these changes such that people don't switch in the middle of combat and just be annoying.
Bless, he's not in to player killing, but load of other people in the office are.
He also mentions bunnies!
He talks about people being able to be in 2 different guilds but not at the same time - I rather stumblingly suggest being a member of several guilds at the same time. Oh, being around the people sucks my confidence away! Heh, these kind of games are not for me anyway. I'm thinking of it almost entirely from a social perspective.
Damn, now I'm desperate to go to the toilet. I thought I might be.
They should be able to make some money out of the Auctions.
IRC chat will also be viewable outside of the game to external viewers.
Instant messaging - this will also work through in to the real world - so someone pings you in the game, it can reach out.
Email to sms gateways easy (easy? I need to talk to him about sms in the US!)
XML information to be read outside of the game - stats, etc - very sweet.
XML incoming - they're still working on that.
Schools and social software. My back is absolutely killing me. Sitting down almost constantly all day indoors is so far from being healthy, it's ridiculous.
Hmm. I had to go to the loo in between Stewart's sessio0n and this one - and so now I'm a little non-plussed. God my insides are so buggered. I just want froooooot. Lots of it.
Tom Hoffman doing the talk.
He's talking about the rubrik used for rating speakers. Amusingly, he's asking us to rate him. He's actually probably the best speaker apart from Clay in terms of being very confident in front of an audience - but then he's a teacher / lecturer s he's used to it.
So, the creation of meaningful data is a social process in scgools.
Framework for talk is:
-Standards
-Data model
-Data collection
-content management
-Trust creation
Hmmm... this is getting a bit specific. he's talking about the datamodel flow, XML schemas and that kind of thing.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. this really is rather boring. I've just spent the last ten minutes taking to Phil on Messenger. Make that twenty. I could have been asleep during this!
Now he's talking about Chandler - that's nice. You know what though? He could use Smartgroups ;) I like the idea of Chandler though. Named after Raymond Chandler apparently, not the Matthew Perry.
Something just occurred to me that was vaguely interesting but I've forgotten it already - no, I remember - it has to do with "future plans" and a discussion leslie and I were having at the weekend. I'll tell you about it later.
the network was buggered a wee while ago so I couldn't dump the last session notes on Chandler up at the time. Like it fuckin' matters! I keep almost being semi-public with this diary/blog thing which I obviously - duh, should not do.
It was so nice talking to D&Q yesterday without having to worry about what I was saying.
Anyway - notes coming up in the extended bit for Chandler and also the Game playing social software notes:
Chandler open source project: (these notes are more or less the slides plus the odd extension).
Chandler
Mitch Kapor - he's funded this, alongside a foundation.
http://www.osafoundation.org
The product:
Open source persional information manager
Email,contacts, tasks, calendar, free form items
Easy sharing and collaboration
Server optional
Linux, mac nad windows
Modular and extensible platform
the heart of chandler
the kind of thing we were trying to do 15 years ago with Lotus agenda - databases the way people think. Putting a premium on the user experience - putting the user first and maintaining ease of use whilst still providing power.
GReat applications can be extended, we think.
Manage large volumes of email more efficiently and more quickly - assisting prioritising. Helps organise life through the inbox.
Share anything with anyone
Browse others' repositories
Publish / Subscribe lets you receive changes automatically
Discussion, review and coordination
User interface is completly scriptable - although it is not in at the moment in this first version. Graphical scripting front-end for end-user scripting. "we think we can really make it easier for a whole bunch more people ....grandmothers can change the application easily"
"It's a tragedy to me that the high point in end user programming is 13 years in the past" (Hypercard)
"We have a commitment to allowing those people to connect with each other and share what they've done" (building local agents)
Chandler for developers:
Commitment to extreme modularity and extensibility
Code organised in to parcels with access to all subsystems
Subsystems (UI, persistent object database, networking, sharing, security) usable independent of the application
Architecture:
wxWindows for cross-platform development
Python as development language
Persistent object database
Multiple front-ends
RAP protocol
Modularity
Agents
"wxWindows is a really important part of what we're doing"
"we need to build front ends for pda's phones, kiosks, a web based UI also.."
Chandler today:
Agent framework.
Caveats about Chandler 0.1:
Hey look, we're just getting started. The look and feel is transient. There's a little calendaring / contacts / instant messaging. there's no email yet and no security. 0.1 is for exploration and play, not use.
Chandler will come with 5 or 6 "parcels" 9actions on the left hand menu) but we fully expect the user community to come up with new parcels - examples coming up.
it's using jabber as the messaging
Contacts list very maleable - interesting
Repository: that's very incomprehensible for users
Extra packets: An RSS reader and a timeclock
"Roster" - the instant messaging package
the messaging is part of the window - the name highlights on the side if you have a message - it's very early days so it doesn't look that much, but it's ok
Public / private - shows up in left hand menu when someone shares an item. The demo works really well
Product roadmap:
-Dot releases .2-.5 will come up over the next few months
Build platform components, design/test compelling features
Target developers
Schedule: ongoing
"canoga" (.5 - 1.0)
-Complete first-generation application
-Targetted at infocentric early adopters
Schedule: TBD (sometime in 2004!!)
"Westwood" release
A version of Chandler for higher education
-Standards based calendar
-Interoperability with campus infrastructure
-Server support for nomadic access, central administration
-Ongoing collaboration with major universities
-Westwood schedule is dependent on funding
How can the development community contrinute:
-Feedback on code, architecture, roadmap, other docs
-Play with code
-Find bugs
-Submit patches
-Experiment with building parcels
-Participate in the mailing lists and the wiki
--------------------------------
Social software / gaming
Stewart Butterfield. He seems like a nice enough bloke.
the consumers that are the future of our genre are everyday, ordinary people. (Raph Koster, Current and future developments in online games)
..."a game that didn't have a single dragon or spaceship in it. a game - let's be frank - an Internet - that is woven in to the fabric of their lives. I know it can be done, and I know that it's not online backgammon"
the last game this lad worked on, had to be shut down - he says when it was shut down, people cried. Aw!
He's using examples:
"Social index" a while bunch of people that look like they're in a high scores table - it's a social index ie: people that are liked. When people were new they would show up as a question make to you until they made contact with you - which would gain them points. Therefore they would try and make contact with you.
He shows a touchgraph descirption of all the relationships - one of the people in the graph is Jean Baudrillard. Arf. 20% of the people involved is so much that you can't actually get anything out of the view other tha to say "Oh blimey, well that was successful then"
I can't really work out what he's saying because I blanked out for a moment (soooo tired right now) - it's something about people moving together and including people as part of the group - I guess he might have been talking about reputation management or something.
I think I just farted on Matt. It's not my fault. He went and sat on the floor behind me.
There's talk about Muds and how cluttered and stupid they look. "It's realy hard for regular human beings to work out what's going on"
Then screenshot from Everquest. He's now talking about ConFab - the - duh - thing that doesn't work.
Contacts in ConFab - you can add notes about them. Conversation groups - he's using drag and drop in to a private conversation. I tink that's Alice on that screen. Possibly -but then how many people are called Alice here who also have a games background!
Identity in the game vs identity in the world. Hmmm. To be honest? This talk has ben a little bit all over the place. He forgot loads of examples and has just been talking away. Ahhhh this is interesting - he's talking about what we're looking at with public / private in SG. But he doesn't really know he's saying it.
I tell you what - looking at what everyone's doing and working on her, I'm so proud of the work we have planned for SG. If it all comes off, I will be so proud.
http://www.gne.net
http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/smallworlds_files/frame.htm
Sitting in listening to Tom Coates, bless 'im, blah-ing on about UMS conversations. It's a bit strange given that I use it all the time. He's not really saying anything other than describing it. He's not talking about the philosophy of it that much.
Aaanyway, so keynotes for today were: Alan Kay, who was in turn lovely but also slightly underwhelming to me (but not to other people), Kevin Lynch from Macromedia (who I mostly missed to be honest, I was busy working - but Ian and Vinny from work will have written a bunch of notes on it) and Mr Shirky, the ringmaster (haha).
So various notes and musings are in the extended section:
Alan Kay
Basic point is - look at how children use technology.
Instrumental reasoning - idea accepted or rejected based on whether this idea contributes to current goals - this is how adults work.
Sketchpad, 1963. Very charming film of a really rather good computer inteface using object oriented design for engineering design (ie: multiple instances of an initial item - change the initial item, all are changed)
How is it possible for Ivan to have invented graphic computing, object oriented computing etc all in one year "Well, I didn't know it was hard"
There was no paradigm. He just did what he wanted to do. The computer was used for air defence the rest of the time - he worked on the program at night
"expensive type writer" - the first graphical text editor
Doc Smith's video game "Spacewar", MIT 1963
Looks a lot like Asteroids!
Made a huge impact on "people" in their twenties. Hmm - more like MIT geeks rather than people, I'd say!
John McCarthy, "Lisp" - a "Meta invention" - programing language. the anniversary we're celebrating today is the 40th birthday of the utilisation of this in an interactive context (missed some details there)
Dug englebart, 1960/68?
"Englebart is the true father of personal computing"
The interesting thing is how he's using links and also changing tings very quickly. Subsecond response on a timeshared machine 40 miles away "how come? Because they wanted it"
My God. He's got a video conference on one corner of the screen, the sound is great. The two people can work together - one of the guys was in Menlo Park, the other in San Francisco. It looks absolutely incredible. "this was part of the way of life back in SLO in 1968. Perfectly possible to do this for the4 last thirty years, obviously"
Fording functions:
Pen based system. Sketchpad. 1966. Extremely advanced.
"Children are the only people on earth who do two handed interfaces like Englebart did" (?)
The Alto. 1975
Making cxomputers in schools interesting - thatwas the primary problem there.
He takes us through a 3D world which is nice, n'all. But still... so what.
....Right - I'm amending "So what" - my instant comment to saying.... well, if you know me, you'll know how much Active Worlds used to give me a hard on. I was almost literally dribbling over it in 1997. I nearly offered to go work for them because their marketing consisted of an over enthusiastic geek with dandruff. But, 3D environments are clunky - they are not instant. They do not have that kick that hypertext links or searches do - IRC chat versus 3D chat is a very good example of what I mean - the interest is really in the content of the conversation, not in the environment.
Aaaanyway.
Ok, I'll pass over Macromedia guy. I didn't write that much down during clay's because he was talking about a lot of group and social theory that if you're working in the field, you come across and work with on an hourly basis. He also talked exclusively about online communities (bringing in conference calls!) which is a bit - hmmm. My personal beef is that we've got to open this stuff up. It's not like SMS is a new thing. And so forth. Anyway, so notes are:
--------------------
what is the revolution in social software?
WR Byan / Bryan???
Research with neurotics
Communitree example "it was closed down by people logging in and posting"
Makes useful point about reputation software "there are people who cheat on their wives but not at cards"
"member in good standing" systems - the japanese music sharing example - placing you publicly against another person
Ease of use is on behalf of the group, not the individual user
Landlords to tenants - the people who use the software behave as if they have rights.
I like his Landlord to tenants line. That's very true. I'll continue this later, we're being chucked out now!!!
---------------------------
Uiversity, Library and Museum content, XML, WS etc:
XML, WS & P2P can transform content from museums, learning institutions into flexible, reusable materials to support leaning - a call for help.
The Interactive University - UC berkeley's unique resources in an open forum.
http://iu.berkeley.edu/etcon2003
http://www.californiadigitallibrary.org
This stuff is really cool! Loads of resources online.
MIT has 2000 courses publicly available and basically free.
University of Texas Knowledge Gateway
http://collectionsonlie.lacma.org
At least reasonable online representations of museum exhibits.
Free online Scholarship Movement - a blog, obviously
-------
Digital scholar's box. The big idea!
Gather digital content; organise content; create new documents from source materials, connect to other material and tools. "Rip mix burn" - bless him.
Nice - basically a search facility that ends in a shopping basket for digital materials (not a paying shopping basket, more of a "collection point"
I tell you what, regardless of anything else, there's some fascinating stuff in the Berkeley collection.
The Scholar's Box concept that he's talking about is not anything that incredibly complex and difficult so far, I think. What would be most interesting would be - exactly right, if many universities / institutions WS/XML up their colections using tools of a similar nature, then the Scholar's Box becomes a really rather gorgeous universal knowledge portal.
There's a demonstration of what could be done - including making an Open Office presentation of saved images - very slow but really charming however.
He mentions Chandler (look this up) - sounds interesting
Sooooo....
Yes. Social software BoF.
Like all geek enterprises, an acronym has to be used to enable "people interested in Social software come together". "BoF" as I have now discovered stands for "Birds of a feather". Presumably this is a term that has been in use for donkeys years. Another way I feel like I am waking up, looking around and going "Uh? eh?" for the first time.
The first half hour of the BoF was *painful*. Horrendous. Pulling teeth. The worst communist party room above a pub meeting where the purpose of being together becomes the definition of the discussion as to why you've been brought together..... ohhhh God!
...and so forth.
However, it began to ease in to something vaguely sensible. Lots of loud Americans who are part of the hostory of the community were being a little too much "in-house". We'll see how it goes. What amused me was that the guys who put together the meet also pulled together the Social Software Alliance wiki including a brand name, email list... the works! all in an entirely undemocratic and quick way in a couple of days. Now, they open it up and go all "community" on it and say "Hey, do whatever you want to do!".... the speed at which anything will happen will now take months. Which is relatively amusing. Matt and James meanwhile hated it. But, I think there's a fundamental difference between people who are practitioners of social software, for whom the mechanics, the law, the dynamics of, say, groups are of core interest, as well as the future of how people are interacting; and people who are in the social software "zone" - who love it, what it can do but don't actually do it as their day to day job.
Anyway, my take on it is - I'm going to keep taking part, the people involved are all interesting enough, and there's no point in complaining about something from a distance - one has to engage in the process.
...and then I had a rubbish tea, and went to bed early but dcidn't fucking sleep. I really am not getting anything like enough sleep this week. It eeees bad.
Constipation.
Warning - foulness in discussion is to be expected.
Oh! Before I get in to that natural-function-ness, Quinn, Dan and Ada came in from the sticks. Ada is gorgeous. I had a lovely few minutes stroking her head. Although ultra-careful Quinn might not appreciate that! Erk.
Let me just say a few words on feeling like I have 3 bricks in my abdomen. When I go to the toilet (on average once a day, as opposed to the usual 3-ish) I exude small pebble sized pellets. With extreme effort.
I feel like I've eaten almost constantly for the last 3 days, but nooooo I haven't! It's not fair! Where are the almost wonderful logs of yesteryear that would near push themselves from my relaxed body at a graceful yet commanding speed! Why can't I get back to those days!
The only answer I can think of is eating an awful lot of prunes or figs, or having fibre pellets. Anything. ANYTHING!!!! I do not want fucking piles! Bastard bloody body!
Walgreens is calling, I can hear it.
On a related note I have felt absolutely dreadful all afternoon. Sick to my stomach. Not helped by sitting in chairs all day, no exercise and no fresh air. Grr! Now, I must go to a social software "BOF" which roughly translates to "Birds of a feather" ie: a load of people in 1 room rambling about the same subject.
Just doing the notes as I go along this time, for a laugh.
Well, using this as a notebook, frankly.
Earth's biggest selection - they come to Amazon first (he's right! Eek!)
31 million people bought stuff from Amazon last year.
21% of total transactions came from merchants who sell on amazon's platform
Web site owners r another customer set - people who own web sites & affiliate
AWS customers and value chain
Amazon.com
web services ---- Developers - build software for website owners and sellers
Web site owners Merchants
| |
Consumers
$900 million investment in to the amazon platform.
Associates program was the basis to the idea behind the web services.
WS:
Merchandising APIs / selling API's / Buying API's.
Providing free, open API's, enabling innovation by 3rd parties; Leverage technology investment; provide an economic model that works for all parties.
"we decided trhat we didn't know all the ways people would want to use this information"
"Instead of thinking that we had all the good ideas, let the whole world takev this data and use it in ways we hadn't thought of."
What does AWS enable?
Customised shopping experience
Rich presentation
Better control of presentation
User stickiness
More revenue for associates
New shopping / Browser models
www.simplest-shop.com/camera
-allows comparison shopping. Hmm - how many of these ideas are then ripped off by Amazon? I don't think there's going to be any questions on this session because it's running late, so I'l have to look in to the legals.
AWS - is an open model. Simple licencing model, Free access to catalogie data, Frequent releases, Broad developer support.
Examples:
http://www.kokogiac.com/amazon2/default.asp
http://techno.starcd.com/proto/yesbar-signup.cgi
Very cool! They're listening to radio stations across the US and you can choose a time and it'll tell you what was playing! Very neato. We need this in the UK!
AWS data flow:
Soap or XML requests
He's posting this presentation up online after, so I think i won't bother trying to decode the wird geological Data Flow diagram.
Overview:
Supports SOAP and REST - giving developers the choice and not going down the choosing route. They don't have business dynamic stats on that but they get more transactions using SOAP. THey like REST more though.
www.snlpeople.com
Heh. Very sweet geek list with links in to Amazon for each show guest.
Oh no! He used Microsoft black clip art men! Erk. Light versus heavy data.
Shopping overview:
-Buy from Amazon links
-Shopping cart API
www.nba.com
Newly announced site. Branded order pipeline & Remote shopping cart. Good god. this API is amazing. There's absolutely nothing stating Amazon at all. Right - the actual credit card transaction comes through to an Amazon checkout.
"seller engine"
www.syndic8.com/~jeff/amazon.html
I have certain opinions about blogging culture. I find it depressing how much time is taken spending discussing something which is basically publishing diaries online.
But then, I have a love/hate relationship with ego, with the strange changes that one can see take place when someone is published, etc (or apparently gain an audience... which is of course what this blogging tool thang can do for people - witness the "comments" section underneath this piece. No one in it ;) Well, no one actualy knows this is here really, so - phew! that's ok then!). I would go on about it and the previous blurb is of course far too reductive but I do find it all very amusing, generally.
*Anyway*! The point in this wee piece is really to stand back in bemused amazement at the extraordinary thing that appeared in The Register this morning: "Social software author 'not miffed' by conference shutout".
The headline in itself states: there is no news here. It seems to be Andrew Orlowski's excuse to whinge about ... well, I'm not sure what, exactly. But hilariously, he invokes Danny's name part way down, and links him and Quinn to Cory and Clay in some sort of ... oh, god knows. Some conference somewhere generates the beginning of yet another bizarre conspiracy theory involving Dan. There must be something going on, sweetheart. I think you're involved in things even you don't know about. Be afraid! Don't look in the mirror!
Heh. It's very amusing being an entirely inconsequential member of a social community to whom this kind of nonsense seems to happen in reasonably large amounts. How? Why? God only knows.
Cory's being very good on stage right now. "There were 50 million people who voted for Bush, butr there were 50 million users of the Napster library... We scuttled underneath the refrigerator like roaches". I utterly, and totally agree with him. excluding oneself from the political process because we feel that it's not our thing is a terrible misery. He's a good speaker amongst friends. Very funny and energetic.
I'm sitting listening to comments after Howard Rheingold's speesch at the O'Reilly conference (annoyingly, I keep saying my usual "Blimey" with an O'Reilly amendment at the moment without thinking. Eeeediot.
This piece is just my notes as Howard's been speaking, written in a notepad. So don't expect anything other than garbled gibberish. I'll try to make it more clear later.
Howard Rheingold notes:
Affecting the political process. Korean experience of text messages to mobile
phones - tipped the election. Recent elections in Kenya -mobilisation to keep
elections honest.
Spontaneous coordination - not top down organisation.
"Howards Dean meetup" (look up)
That's so fucking weird! He's talking about the consumer / User dichotomy. This is what I've been saying for years! How mad.
Natural skepticism - Consumers - currently a majority, in law particularly. These people are still creating our legal environment, although users are creating our organisational environment - "our" being people like those in this room.
Political - control of innovation is under attack. "Trusted computing" -
legislation, etc. Compromise of the end-to-end principle, control of spectrum by
the current incumbents.
"could make the internt something we look back on with nostalgia"
The threat of wifi to 3G. 3G linked to governmental control.
Make networks of devices, human communication media, a portion of the electromagnatic spectrum available for experimentation.
DEfend incumbents from excluding newcomers (internet radio, spectrum regulatuion, RIAA and MPAA)
It's all very well, he says "Why don't some of you show the music industry"... re: creating a paying the artist direct music system. Everyone's been talking about this for years but nothing's happening so far. It's too complex. the music industry must be there as an organisation and promotional network, similarly with the film industry. Things cannot be paid for unless there is money available in advance (counter this with the White Stripes)
Mobile devices used by those who would not use computers, but are internet access points almost *more* useful by their brevity. Tools specific to what you actually need at that point.
A "social contract" of trust.
Encouraging self-organising networks. People and devices, mobile, networked and pervasive.
Trust mechanisms are pivotal, will reputation evolve? (look at Ebay for the basic version). Devices should be able to link people together and create social capital. Who in this vicinity is like me?
Preserve freedom of information in Places - ie: who will control local information networks? Will self organisation location based be "owned".
Example of bar code reader. "The era of Sentient things": When every Thing has a story, who will be allowed to read and write them?
"preserve open systems, then invent new ones. Think about whole systems when designing new tools: build in room for future innovators, learn from the past.
Think of ways vthat the individual users can link together.
I'm wondering whether any of these people who are currently blogging this speech, like Tom, sitting beside me are going to get up to a Mic and actually challenge Howard R himself, as opposed to post up vaguely critical comments? This seems to say something to me which just backs up what is now traditional - hiding but challenging... or something. Stand up and challenge publicly!
it seems that there's such a large British contingent here, we should be putting across a point of view which might be slightly different from a lot of these guys here.
Aaaaanyway...
Leslie tries her hardest not to wake me up but the jet lag keeps me awake and struggling to relax before I give up and eventually arise at 6.30. You know what? Throughout all this, there has hardly been any worry about sprog. He’s been sitting it out, being pumped with antibiotics (not the greatest start, I know – I apologise now) and at worst, being the cause of some extreme constipation on Sunday afternoon. During Sunday I realised that it was the 7th week Sunday that last year ushered in the not so swift goodbye to the small person who I couldn’t keep alive for whatever reason. So we’ve crossed that hurdle.
Monday is work meetings and I’m exhausted due to lack of sleep but they’re productive enough. Afterwards we go straight to the Westin and run in to Alice almost immediately. Later on in the bar, Vinny and Ian sir down with my friends who I have far too much love for (that’s such a lie, there can never be enough) and I’m very happy. Very, very happy.
Feeling completely different! We get grabbed for brunch. We go out, we go to… good god, the International House of Pancakes! It is terrible, abysmal rubbish! And therefore funny.
The breadth of how many people are here starts to become clear. Jones, Fiona, Ben, Webb Coates… and that’s before we meet up with everyone else. I have a terrible breakfast, inevitably.
The call has gone out via Leslie’s friend Michael to go to Prosidio park to the Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence Easter Parade. We duly go and have a *wonderful* time. Josh appears, who barely anyone has actually ever met, and we seem to gather friends and family whilst just sitting on the grass taking photos. (Links to come, haven’t bothered with them yet).
The contrast between Saturday and Sunday couldn’t be greater. Today is loved up bliss. We repair to a biker bar and have terrible veggie burgers and home fries before eventually thinking – hold on, I can barely keep my head vertical. The others go on to more drunken pursuits, Leslie, Matt, Fiona and I make our escape – M&F to stress about a presentation he has to make the next day, Leslie to get enough sleep before getting up at 3am to go to Denver on a 5am flight.
Woke early, read a load of my book. Tootling around the house. At a point, Leslie went to have a shower, at which point I immediately had a “ooooh, I need the loo” pang, that little acid yelp that says: you need to go.
I’m holding, I’m holding and she’s out! Cue me, rushing in only to pee a tiny amount and have an acrid burning zap upward as if from some fucking Tesla coil shoved down the toilet.
And I’m wondering. Is this a symptom? Is this dodginess or is it just an early-morning-not-enough-liquid-in-my-system-strong-pee-ness?
Half an hour later I’m voicing my concerns that no, I’m really not feeling right. Excuse me Leslie whilst I drink all your available water to the point of never wanting to have water again in my life.
Cystitis kills me. It is a disastrous weakness. If I get it, within hours I’m bleedin inside my bladder. From there, it’s an easy nuther 24 hours whilst the infesction stops hurting me because it’s travelled in to my kidneys, I’m passing pus and generally collapsing and needing hospitalisation.
So you can see, urgency is key. Understated panic occurs.
Leslie rocks. Whilst I’m pissing every ten minutes and drinking gallons of water, pacing, stressing and generally in states of horror, Leslie is phoning Boots travel insurance who can’t find my details (the whole thing only being 24 hours old) and keeping very calm, laughing at the guy on the other end of the line’s jokes, keeping him sweet…
… and now a cab. A cab is coming. We’re in a car. I’m going to “Urgent care”. My hands are clenched. I feel terrible and Leslie, again blesss her, is describing daft landmarks to me where funny things happened and we’re going through Castro and allllll sorts of things but I really, really need the toilet. And I’m scared.
Stanford University Hospital and did I tell you? It’s a glorious day outside. It’s been raining in San Francisco for weeks and I’m forcing Leslie to look after me on the one day that has looked like anything lovely for weeks. But, the glorious day has deterred visitors to Urgent Care, which is making me very happy because the second I get in the door I grab a urine sample jar and rush to the toilet. Relief? Are you mad? Every piss is a streak of fear and pain, but to not piss is horror.
Frankly, after that it was just a case of getting the pills and dragging our asses home. The weird thing is the placebo effect, which is – thank god, I have my prescription, everything’s on track… the symptoms just begin to disappear.
However. Poor Leslie continued to look after me, I was completely zonked all evening and she even went to a grocers to get me my supper! (I could only stomach lentil soup) I am humbled by this lovely, lovely woman.
It’s been a few days. Not exactly uneventful. Best to write this in tranches, I do believe.
The flight.
18th April: Got up extremely early, so totally shagged, and did the whole Heathrow thing with loads of time to spare, which I actually prefer. So got myself some potassium rich bananas, already had 2 litres of mineral water, got a smoothie (I’ve gone crazy for anything involving fruit) and a large peppermint tea at the centrally located Starfucks. Oh yes and an American plug, and my travel insurance. And 3 magazines, as well as my books.
So I’m basically sorted. As usual couldn’t sleep at all on the plane, sat next to 2 very nice dykes who were a bit humorously reactionary (I was having a vegan meal. Look of shock” You’re having veal?” “No, a vegan meal” “Oh. I was going to ask to move”).
Watched Lilo And Stitch on the plane and actually, you know it was absolutely FAB. It did poignant, family and sad but not in a gluey way; the script was *almost* flawless. And what with being overtired and hormonal I bawled like a leedle girl through loads of it. When Stitch is sitting there with a gun at his head, and he looks so sad, saying “I was looking for my family”. Snort, sob… anything to do with family and love, it kills me every time.
Frankly, the other films were shite so watched Punch Drunk Love for the 2nd time. The acting makes it just about worth it. Everyone in it is doing such a good job.
Aaaaaanyway. Get to the airport, get in a shuttle, get to Leslie’s. Find out she smokes, wince slightly but then, it’s not too bad. Send a few emails and promptly fall asleep on her bed. When she got back from work she woke me up and we yacked for an absolute age before she took me, all phased and new-timezone weirded out to a cheapo formica table type café round the corner. She lives in the Mission which is Mexican-a-go-go. I’ve never seen so many Mexican people, frankly. So this formica table café? $3.50 for a burrito with beans, salsa, onion, rice, fresh herbs and 50 cents for extra avocado. All wrapped up in foil, no cheese, nothing bad just juicy, filling, spicy, delicious DELICIOUS food. The next morning, I was having fantasies about it. It was incredible. I’m never having anything that describes itself as a burrito in England again. Would that English formica table cafes would serve anything like food half as good as that. Good lord!
After this, we went back, sorted out the bed and whathaveyou and generally conked out relatively early.
I've been listening with barely restrained horror at the stories of looting in the last few days. not just in Baghdad but all over Iraq. Robert Fisk, a peerless commentator on middle-eastern affairs wrote this piece in the Indie (picked up from Danny).
Talking to my Dad last night on the phone he, in a slightly over "anti" way, said he'd read that the American army surrounded the ministry for oil, but let everything else go. I haven't seen that verified anywhere so am looking. I think you can put an equal importance on some of this historical material and the value of the lives now bring lost in hospitals all over the city.
Iraq has an almost immeasurable importance in - ironically - western history terms. The first written language, the seat of the Christian bible. I watched a programme on Beeb 2 a while ago with my jaw dropping to the flaw in awe, as an archeologist historian bloke wandered (under guard, obviously) through the architectural wonders of ancient cities - of Babylon (excluding the corruption and horror of the - get this - rebuilt bits paying homage to Saddam Hussein. Rebuilt, yes - by *destroying the original that was there before it*); of Ziggurats that rose, umber red and glowing in the baking heat; the point where the Euphrates ran to the plains of the Garden of Eden and so much more than that.
Even if the oil story isn't true, the disgusting shrugging of shoulders at this miserable turn of events, the "Don't look at me, Gov, I'm only the bloke what shot people" attitude demolishes any rational thought I have on the subject and reduces my articulacy to a bunch of half strangulated and yelled swearwords.
And as for the disgrace of the Presidency's current cock waving stance on Syria and the pathetic, shambling response to that from Jack Straw (not because it is morally right to say "hold on a minute" but purely because the UK has important defence contracts with Syria!)... well. I think you can probably guess what I feel about that.
This cultural and political imperialism by the US will only lead to more awfulness, more misery, more bloodshed. Fuck it, Bush behaves like a monolithic madman. How dare he talk about weapons of mass destruction. Just..... aaargh! I can't argue! It's so excrutiatingly, obviously WRONG! I just feel like emigrating.
I loathe such that my skin feels cold and clammy with the crawling of the lies and deceit of it all.
(Meanwhile change of pace) - everything else seems hunky dory.
Gorgeous man of the hour James has come through with a hotel bedroom with a spare bed in it for EtCon. (Bloody awful pictures of Ben Hammersley and Clay Shirky there!). For most of the time, anyway. Huge. HUGE sigh of relief I was really worried about the whole stinkin' thing.
Now I can go and rest up whilst
Meanwhile, no throwing up incidents to record, and barely any extreme nausea either given that I have only been eating soup and a lovely stir fry for my tea / dinner type options. This is obviously the way to go - fuck fish and other heavy duty things - fresh vegetables and pulses seem to slip by my sick-o-meter no problemo.
Also, Virgin Atlantic are very cool. they're telling me I can get special "Helping me with my luggage" type treatment. Blimey. this I like. I doubt they'll meet me from my cab but still, it's all rather good. The thought that I'm calling Virgin cool is quiet distressing.
Hello. Here is a daily list of things that make me go "hurll".
Anything involving fat or oil. Which is wonderful given that we got ourselves a deep fat frier ostensibly for my birthday!
Last night - no, start at the beginning. Sunday night we made pakora. It was good fun. I had a sinking feeling very fast. I started eating them and suddenly had to say - no, can't do it. Can't eat them, I feel terrible.
Had some batter left, so Mackay was all set to cook it up last night. He turned the frier on, and the smell started to waft up the stairs. That was it. Any thought of dinner gone from my head. Any thought of eating - gone from my head. Ended up eating some soup in the very front room of the house, having closed all doors available between me and the fat smell, and discovered that if I lay on the floor reading, the smell didn't reach there - it sort of hovered at hip height and above.
And this morning I almost puked in the sink as I was brushing my teeth! Come *on*!!! I've got to brush my teeth, people! Granted it was using "Emergency" toothpaste - ugh. Toms of Maine "Gingermint" baking soda. Don't get it kids. It is *grim* in a tube, I'm telling you.
I wanted to just muse for a moment to let you know just what this sicknesss is like.
Any time I think about food at all, I feel sick.
Any time I think of anything above and beyond water or oatcakes, I feel very sick. And I mean anything. Everything. Eating home made Pakora last night? I think I managed about ten single slices of fried vegetable before even the thought of putting another piece in my mouth made me want to hurl. This morning, I had the organic salmon I was supposed to have last night? Spent every minute before eating it dreading it, feeling more and more ill at the thought of something so rich. Never mind the thought of the Quails eggs we'd bought. Good God! those might as well have been made of lard and sprinkled with essence of sludgey rich goo - that is how my brain felt about them. The smell of the - ugh, even thinking about it now is a mistake - the smell of the glistening, gleaming haddock I had last week... enough to make me want to stick my fingers down my throat to relieve the tension.
Frankly, if I could eat oatcakes or at a pinch, dry rye bread with water (perhaps with a little bit of apple juice in - not too much or it would taste too heavy and sweet) - if I could pleeeeeease just eat that for a few days? Please? Surely I don't have to eat all this rich, thick, heavy food?
Damn you! Damn you all to hell!
Well. truth be told, it's actually week 6 and X days, but the way I see it is that we're now during week 7. Does that make sense to you? Well it does to me.
What have I, in my paranoid state, noticed so far. Apart from feeling incredibly sick yesterday (yes, the novelty is really wearing off now) I have noticed that:
a) I woke up at 4.55 am this morning, disrupting my night's sleep completely, convinced I was cramping but in fact just needed to have a pee (it's all very well this "having to go to the toilet all the time" business, but I am drinking a lot of water to compensate - which of course means I wake up feeling uncomfortable with a full bladder going "Oh no! What's that crampy feeling!".
Hmmmm.
Anyway. the point is it was basically *next* Sunday last year that I lost ... her. I think talking about that is probably one of the reasons I want to do this thing, but it demands more attention than me scribbling away whilst sitting on the sofa, so I won't right now.
But the main focus of my paranoia is that I am now terrified about Friday. The bit last night with me not being able to sleep was spent with me wondering what I could do if I started miscarrying on the plane - whether they have any sort of emergency bed area I could go to.
And all sorts of lovely thoughts like that. Delightful. I so desperately wish I wasn't going. The thought of having a miscarriage somewhere else, away from Mackay, and even more horrifically, on a fucking aeroplane over the Atlantic Ocean. Please God No. And if I even think for ten seconds about the hell that next week is going to be - of how unutterably exhausted I'm going to be. I wish it was easily cancellable but it isn't.
Meanwhile, I must now go to the loo once more.
...and no mention *anywhere* of Jerry Springer the Opera in terms of reviews.
It started on... April 9th. It's the 13th now. Suspecting they would have kept the press away from the first couple of performances I wonder what the hell is going on?
One suspects that it received so much pre-publicity and hype (not, in this case, because of the "Men in black" machinery that governs PR for Avalon, but purely because the performance in Edinburgh was so jaw droppingly good) that the review editors have all decided to ignore it reviews wise for a week or so.
Who knows. Google news tells me helpfully that Springer is thinking about standing for the Senate, which of course is magnificent news. He's actually a bit of a lefty from what I remember although that would take more research to confirm than I can *really* be bothered to do.
But, no sign whatsoever of Richard Thomas and Stu's thing. But, in the absence of any reviews I must tell you: It's so good. When I saw it in Ed, it was so astoundingly good, and I was so intensely proud of them that when I saw Richard on my way out of the Assembly Rooms main hall, I couldn't really say that much to him because I actually had tears welling up in my eyes of proudness. That is the most ridiculous thing, but it does happen to me often - having strong emotional reactions to performance. Anyway I told Stu how much I liked it and he went all defensive and pathetically sneary because some gay man had earlier criticsed it for being homophobic or some... weirdness. That kind of patronising unwillingness to accept a compliment from someone who is judged to be "unworthy" somehow does really Get On My Tits. However. It could be just me being paranoid so I forgive easily.
Anyway, you can tell by the fact that I am chattering about nonsense that:
a) Nothing bad has happened (yay!!!)
b) I seem to have survived another Sunday foetus-intactus. Yay yayyy!!
Oh yes! And yesterday I tired myself out generally by going and unfortunately splashing a load of money out of some incredibly lovely summer clothes which will comfortably fit a growing belly (whether it's simply mine or includes a small package) but more importantly, the most gorgeously comfortable bra I have ever known. It was twenty pounds!!! And it was the only one they had in the shop (Marks and Spencers, obviously). It will easily push out and loosen up to accomodate more balloonage. I also had to get one which was actually a "Maternity bra" which I didn't feel desperately comforrtable about. Like accepting that it is real and permanent (uhoh, I don't think so).
I can't show you the link because unfortunately the M&S speciality bras section links to a load of flowers! Needless to say I am about to send that to tips@spesh.
La de dah. Quite happy today. Ho hum! Not setting myself up for a fall, still taking every day as it comes - just allowing myself to be happy. Hey - why not.
So yesterday was probably the worst day I've had in a long time. It seemed to cap off a week that hasn't actually finished. Ended up not leaving work until half nine because I had a deadline of today on a 37 page document (started the day before, how nice).
Anyway. I did cry in the end. In the cab on the way home, talking to Mackay. I tried really hard not to start getting in to that cycle of sobbing when you can feel your neck muscles and mouth muscles begin to cramp up and refuse to stop pulling you further down in to a spiral of losing control... horrible! It has hormone upset effects if you do that too. Even in my "letting it all out" I end up thinking "Now, breathe deeply, think of sprog".
When I got out of the cab, I was walking on to the pavement to get to the flat when a guy on a cyle nearly knocked in to me. He was cycling on the pavement without any lights, was black, and wearing dark clothes, so I basically didn't see him at all. He shouted really loudly at me, just a roaring noise then suddenly he was on top of me and it terrified the life out of me. I thought it was someone attacking me (remember this was at about 10pm).
So that just put the tin lid on it. I was shaking and sobbing all over again trying to get my keys in the door, shallow breathing and desperate to be in my house, and away from everything.
Of course I didn't sleep properly. Of course I kept waking up. Of course despite going to bed at 10.30 I was still awake past midnight. And of course, Mackay was brilliant. Not overpowering or railign against my job or... anything. Just "there".
And, such is the way of things, I feel a lot different today. I have promised myself I will leave at 5.30 regardless of anything, and I will also avail myself of one of those nice Lush creamy baths when I get home. Whether or not that comes off is a different matter.
You know the part when you are very overtired and you feel like bursting in to tears and letting it all wash out because you just-can't-take-it-any-more?
- Someone at work who I work with really closely got very stressed herself yesterday and let it all out by shouting at me for about half an hour in a completly unreasonable way, about very unreasonable things (eg: she expects business requirements documents to all come out exactly right first time, with absolutely no input from her or any other stakeholders because it's *all* may responsibility, and it's not her job to have creative input in to decision making. Like - wtf kind of stupidity is that?)
- Went to have blood tests this morning as instructed, get doctor's letter, it's written to the consultant at the hosp, so the general impression there is that I've been stupid, and I should have seen a haemo first. Well, I followed the instructions I got from my GP, *and* I phoned Parkside in the week as well and they said the same thing. So I'm left looking stupid when it's not my fault and it puts me in yet more stress and a difficult position not really knowing what I'm supposed to do next. They don't even have any haemo appts available until after I'm in SF anyway. But the general point being that the nurse just shrugs and says "I have no idea whwther these are the complete set of tests that should be done, you might have to have more, we won't know until you see a Heamotologist".
- Phoned the Medical insurance people who told me that because it was only a referral letter from my GP, that the tests won't be paid for because it's still treated as NHS!!! I have to be referred by a Consultant. But all my PCOS stuff was referred by my GP, I don't understand - if I was seeing a consultant, why would I want to be referred? It's completly insane. Anyway the horrible, horrible upshot of this is that I'm now probably going to have to pay for these fucking tests, which are specialised and so probably will cost a fucking fortune, and I haven't got any spare money.
- More worries about staying at my friend Danny's the week after next - me being unexpectedly pregnant has made me very nervous about camping in his garden in case anything happens, but the only alternative is for me to pay for a hotel room on my own and feel lonely as fuck given that I'll be going to bed early every night on my own. Aaaargh I really wish I wasn't going but I can't not go now.
There are a few other money worries too which I'm in the process of eliminating so they no longer prey on my mind quite so much but all round I feel totally and unutterably like just throwing in the towel today and sobbing in the corner.
Anyway. I faxed an emergency letter over to the doc's office and I'll call them in a minute to follow it up, saying "We have to get me an appointment with a Haemo consultant FAST" or words to that effect. God knows what'll happen with that.
I might just go in the loo and cry to myself in a while. This sort of thing should not be happening. I'm supposed to be taking things easy.
Oh God. I am so tired I want to curl up in a heap and sleep for a week.
On top of which I have been feeling nauseous all day (hmm, I believe that my general "put out the flags" notions will swiftly be swapped with "oh God, make it stop" ones).
Meanwhile in other news it appears that the Iraq war may be over bar the shouting.
And the looting. And the lack of water. And the rest.
I have a habit of putting song titles / album titles in to these subject headings.
It also seems a bit pretentious to me to have a subject heading for one's entry. P'raps I should just start randomly going through the alphabet and say any old rubbish there. Or stick to song titles (see how hip or unhip Cait is! See how she defines herself against the music she is willing to admit to liking!).
So. Back to the usuals:
Alright. Doctor's appointment yesterday.
I just want to say, by the way - there is not a lot of point talking about Monday. It was absolutely dire, so I'd rather just pick myself up again, if you see what I mean.
Right. Yes. Blood tests.
Talking to the Doc yesterday it became clear that the blood test for Progesterone was almost a complete waste of time since the Doc can't tell anything more by the "Normal" result they got back than I can. This is so crass. They knew I was pregnant and they knew the circumstances, the Nurse *should have written that stuff on the god damn test*. So now I'm stuck with in all probability going back to the Acute Gynae Clinic tomorrow morning at 8am and having *another* fucking test, which will take up to a fucking week to come through. This is THE crucial time as I don't have to remind you. Jesus. Incompetence is not what I need right now.
A different blood test will be needed tomorrow at Parkside, the private hispital in Wimbledon. I have bad memories of this place - the Gynae I saw there when I was knocked out and terribly ill with PCOS (when we first realised what was going on) had the bedside manner of a horse. He absolutely refused to believe that my left ovary gave me pains, and told me it was IBS. No, mate, I know what IBS feels like, this is ovary pain. "There is no evidence of pain with PCOS". Oh really? Perhaps you could tell me why in the last few months I have been unable to walk with crunching agonising lower back pain on the days I'm ovulating from my left ovary? Twat.
Er, anyway. So the reason I'm going private is to get this blood test done on my er... clotting profile (is nearly the right terminology). It's a test I should have had done absolutely ages ago and I was too scared (I think. I kept just forgetting about it by accident). So basically - actually, did I write an aside about this? Yes, kind of. So now's the time when I absolutely-have-to-know if I have got this genetic blood clotting "thing". If I have, then joy of joys, it appears that whilst I'm pregnant I'm going to have regular injections to thin my blood. This will mean that the birth will have to be in hospital given that I'll be pouring forth the red stuff like there's no tomorrow. This saddens me a great deal so I hope if only for that reason that this doesn't happen. On a personal level I'm not exactly over the moon at the prospect of having to inject myself regularly but what I want isn't really the point at issue right now.
Sooooo the damn test results will apparently take a week. Which is absolutely terrible news (I thought what with it being private they'd come through quicker). Terrible for several reasons: a) Every day is "horror", frankly, with these variables still hanging over my head. Particularly as we reach mid-week and we're pushing in to week 7 next week which is the time most miscarriages happen, and b) I'm going to San Jose - well, San Francisco in the first instance on *Friday* next week, so I'm going to have to make a tentative appointment with a Haematologist bang on Thursday, which I will then have to cancel (and presumably therefore pay for) on Thursday itself, just in case I need to get a load of stuff sorted out before I go.
Just what I need - stress and more stress. *Plus* I have realised that because my health insurance with work doesn't pay for anything reproductive, if I were to need medical help pronto in the US (there's always the possibility of saving a miscarriage, y'see) then I'll need to pay for my own medical insurance on top of this anyway. Which is a bit of a fucking waste of my money. Very annoying.
So, having got all of that out of my head and on to paper I feel a bit better. I dread to think what this must all look like to "Person X" if they survive all of this, 20 years from now. Hey you - offspring person - just look at how much hassle and worry you're putting me through already, and you haven't even been born yet! (Only joking, I love you really).
Yes, I am capable.
Just getting my head around these CSS after not having used HTML since the dark ages I have done lots of nice things so far (had a session over about an hour or so on Sunday last which achieved the "no horizontal scrolling, no massive ariel everywhere and the calendar / links on the right hand side). This was all achieved care of ripping off Tomski's css and twiddling with it, but I cannot Can Not get my banner text to show as white. I twiddled with the right bit of his, downloaded obviously, then tried with mine and still nada. I don't like my Moolies being black. It looks rather stupid. The banner will change from beign
Over the coming months I will obviously twiddle with it more so I can get it looking just - o please - a little less like the regimented thing what it is. But meanwhile, I just be startin' at the beginning, so any help gratefully received.
Ok, look. Everything's alright, that's the most important thing.
For detail, read on:
No point writing this out as a story:
- Started bleeding at around 1-ish I think
- Cramp
- Oh shit
- Phone A&E, they say come in we might be able to stop it
- Write a "cover my ass" email for work (was working at home at the time).
How I managed to keep that at the forefront of my mind god only knows.
- Breaking down at this point - really didn't think that would happen, and for a while, it looked like I would be very business like about the whole thing but I had 2 seconds to myself (bad mistake!) and suddenly all these cracks grunched open and a flood of extreme horror and sadness slooshed every practical good intention out of the window
- Spoke to a lass from work, trying to hold back all tears during conversation, being very "Organisey". She doesn't know, so she was fairly shocked by this sudden "Right, Im going to hospital" thing
- Got to hospital, did the ole' water in a bottle thing after some pushing
- Bleedin and cramping start to mysteriously die off
- Sit in A&E for nearly 6 hours
- Eventually see gynae. They obviously weren't worried about me and had other people to see. Got an all clear. Everything still there, no problems.
NO FUCKING PROBLEMS??? What, so bleeding and cramping is normal is it?? Jesus.
Ugh. Please, oh fundamental mathematical and physical truthes of the universe (well I've got to pray to something ain't I) DO NOT DO THAT TO ME AGAIN.
Went to bed at 9, was so knocked out. Still feel a bit feeble today, to be honest. Kept waking up all night, anxious and sweating and had a series of heavy duty anxiety dreams.
Sorry to shock and sadden yesterday. To be frank, I've barely give myself the opportunity to be happy, I'm so flaked. I am though. I'll give you another update on some specifics later on. Maybe tomorrow when my head's a little more screwed on.
I thought there was something wrong when I went to the loo just now.
I'm thankful I'm at home.
Not going to be updating for a while, methinks.
Yes. Here's something I wanted to mention. Franklin Graham (son of Billy) has organised a bunch of aid help through his aid agency, Samaritan's Purse.
This is an interesting moral quandry to me. Why do people who wish to be part of an aid agency feel the need to be part of a christian aid agency, as opposed to any of the other well established routes? What is it about Samaritan's Purse that is particularly great, as opposed to, say, the Red Cross?
I can only think it comes from 2 things 1) The need for community spirit and 2) Evangelical zeal. I've had many arguments in the past with people about this, but my (very) personal feeling is that aid groups associated with any religions should be made to agree to codes of conduct and should be banned from entering other countries if they are associated even vaguely with any religious missionary-ing.
I loathe religion. It makes my skin crawl. Personal spirituality - different kettle altogether.
In it to win it.
As I was walking down to the train station this morning, feeling decidely odd I wondered how much of "Odd" is psychosomatic. I can only come to the conclusion that of course, quite a lot of it is. It's only if I start actually throwing up that I'll believe this phase.
I also tried to imagine actually "being" pregnant. That sounds bizarre but until I'm over this bit, I don't think I truly am. attempting to see a largely rounded me and trying to organise Christmas, totally knackered with new small person in tow it just wasn't happening. It felt luducrous. How could I possibly be so stupid as to think that that might happen.
So.
I keep putting these in "Extended entry" because I feel so unutterably self obsessed it's quite embarrassing. However, that is in fact the purpose of this 'ere blog thing - barely anyone knows it exists, but I want it to be a permanent record (as permanent as the web can be) of how I'm feeling, and how it's going on a day to day basis.
However there are some links to "real life" I want to talk about later so you never know there might be something to talk about that doesn't involve my womb paranoia.
Realised this morning that I'm slightly afraid of Sundays in this condition, given that Sunday is when I miscarried last time.
That reminds me of the one part of The Invisibles that I have always thought was a nonsense. Edith, in her 1930's self has a miscarriage out of the blue in the middle of... probably Harvey Nich's, and a nice young man picks it up in his bowler hat!
No no no. That would not happen for several reasons. 1) Although it is an assumption, presumably she'd be wearing knickers! 2) There's a hell of alot of pretty bad labour pain over about 4 or 5 hours before the actual miscarriage so the chances of Edith not knowing what was going on is miniscule - she certainly wouldn't be gadding about shopping for nice hats. More like rolling around on the floor groaning in agony.
Anyway. I've wanted to say that somewhere for ages.
Had smoked mackeral yesterday which was what I imagine fish should taste like. Strong and oily. It was (whisper it) rather nice. On top of which I managed to get round to seeing Confessions of a Dangerous Mind at last. Noticeable not only for being a good fun romp of a film, but also is notable for large sections of almost completely gratuitous shots of Sam Rockwell's glamorous arse. I think George Clooney has a bit of a thing about arses and
I'm sure he also did it partially as a joke. But, I'd certainly not worry about being faced with Sam Rockwell's ass again. Heh. If I read that about a woman I'd be enraged, obviously. I blame my hormones.
I was almost crumbling with exhaustion when we got out of the cinema though.
Meanwhile, John Simpson recorded an account of being involved in a devastating friendly fire incident which sounded absolutely horrific. Their translator's legs were blown off and he died within minutes. He saw a man burning to death in front of him; body parts blown all around him and a shrapnel part nearly made it through the kevlar on his gun-proof jacket.
The Americans were muffling their way through a press conference an hour after he's put the report in.
Up My Street is in administration. This is a terrible awful thing to happen for so many reasons. Primarily it affects some of my best friends, and that's more important than anything, the job market being as it is.
Secondly, however it must not be underestimated what a huge blow this must be to Stef whose personal crusade is the distribution of information that matters to the masses. Faxyourmp would never have happened without Upmystreet. Faxyourmp could not have happened without Upmystreet.
And beyond even the personalisation of the bitter disappointment is the mere fact of it's existence. It's a beautiful concept. One of the purest web concepts I've ever seen: taking a small input box, just your postcode, and giving you at least the beginning of your own, personal portal of information. The idea could have been expanded on so far and so clearly.
I remember three years ago trying to show my employers and for them to "get" the whole local information revolution; that a single input box on the front page could lead the user to personalised info that is uniquely UK oriented. "Personalisation" - or to put it more bluntly, the clunky and frankly hilarious "Push" concept is misused and misunderstood by just about everyone who ever touches it. Upystreet is surely one of the few concepts that actively utilised the personal interests of its users in a way that made sense. Particularly since the launch of Conversations, which is a wonderful concept which has only just started to take off.
It's so sad, it's desperate.
Meanwhile children die in Iraq, I suppose.
Paranoia of the day. Well. There isn't one, actually. I had a funny pain sitting in a car last night around my left ovary but these days I can never tell if it's front action or back action. I'm trying my hardest to feel less conscious of going to the loo. And generally speaking, things are just kind of... ok!
I had to give up eating some mango chutney last night, the raw onions and chutney tasted so strong I couldn't stomach them at all. We'd ordered Indian so I had tarka saag dhall and mushroom rice, beginning to suss that extreme flavours aren't really going down too well at the moment. Having said that though, my stir fry the other day had plenty o'chilli in it and it seemed delicious at the time. Ach, it seems to change hourly.
Meanwhile, bedtime has now clearly moved to 10.30 or even 10, and I'm still waking up tired at 7, sometimes (like this morning) waking up in a flurry again twenty minutes later. I'm feeling generally a bit zonko'd today. I'm going to take a picture of my arm, from which I had the test the other day. It's bruised as *hell* I'm telling you! I look like a drug addict, I realised in a meeting today!
As I type, I am being told by the receptionist at the Doc's surgery that my Progesterone levels are "normal" whatever that means! So I'll discuss it with ye doktor on Tuesday. Meanwhile it gives me a green light to phone up my friend the Herbalist.
Enough, already!
I spent the morning volunteer moderating on the open (ie: no registration required) post-moderated forums on F... (cough) where I work. Never have I seem such a parade of miserable racism. If anything, the action being post-moderated allows a forum (albeit hopefully brief) for those whose voices are rarely heard in the media. Reactionary (in the true sense of the word) people whose emotional response to a situation is to find an easy answer - an easy villain. In this case it seems to be all Muslims. Moslems. Towel heads. Pakis. asylum seekers. These are the search words used to try and get these messages off the forum.
Of course what deletion does is encourage the same reactionary anger to be turned against those deleting. "This is a free fucking country! Delete this you shit heads!" (the irony being of course that if it said "this is a free country! delete this one then!" it would of course stay up).
Curiously, on a personal level I swear like a trouper, but within agreed fora. I swore in a phone call yesterday and apologised immediately, although it was with work colleagues who know what I'm like. I personally have no problem with swearing. If it gets things out of the system then fine, but - like smoking, the action is socially unacceptable to many and therefore must take place in a mutually agreed setting.
In an "Express your views" war forum, saying "GET OVER THERE AND NUKE THOSE IRAQI BASTARDS" is, generally speaking, not really the done thing. Yes, a view is being expressed, no it is not appropriate. Whilst trying to remain entirely neutral, I am of course delighted to be deleting frightening and life limiting quips like that one. Someone wrote about being called up. "I can't wait! I wonder where they'll send me. Birmingham? Bradford?".
Paranoia slot of the day: I never know whether this is my brain giving me things to worry about or not, and 've also never heard of this in other people but perhaps it's so normal no one mentions it (or more to the point, notices it). Today when I was walking to the office from Farringdon, I had funny little pulling pains. Not big - barely whispers of tugs. Enough however to immediately switch my internal body-consciousness-alert to red alert. I get in to work and of course there's nothing going on.
I have to say, this week seems to have gone on for a century. Thank God I'm generally speaking calming down quite a lot. If it had gone on like Monday / Tuesday I'd be a nervous wreck by now.
Jobs for today: phone doc's to see if test results are back and go get more vitamin pills (for I have run out). I'll tell you about my pill regime sometime. I remind myself of a crank, I really do.
Felt generally very uneasy about the idea of food for most of this afternoon. It could be that the Swordfish was rich. It could be that my hormones are doing all the right things.
Who can tell? Not me, that's for sure.
One of the major changes which I've carried through from last time is eating fish. Oily fish is good for brain development, apparently. The only trouble is, what fish are oily? Tuna, mackeral and salmon are on the list so far but I took a chance today at lunch and had Swordfish, which was a bit weirdly meaty: it reminded me texturally of chicken. Although I wouldn't know what checken was like if you forcefed me.
Given that in every day life I am a tediously moral vegetarian, I find this fish interlude very peculiar. The temporary hiatus is only partial, given that it appears that only skipjack tuna will do from an ecological perspective; that "top of the food chain" fish should only be eaten once a week or less because they're full of mercury and other toxic shit (hmm. No more Swordfish for me then).
If I'm honest? the Tuna I had in this Leeds hotel last time was entirely delicious and I felt gutted for months that I couldn't have it any more. Mackay was bemused about my strict refusal once back in the land of the foetus-less, and would keep shrugging and shaking his head, telling me that fish would be good for me (Fried fish ist gut for you!*).
So. I should imagine I'll be having quite a bit of mackeral as the months go on. If the months go on. It's just too dificult to think of this as anything but temporary.
*Hurley in-joke - stupid line from a Crazy Gang film. Incidentally, it seems miserable to me that there seems to be no Crazy Gang central homepage. Perhaps I should do one. Uhuh. In my spare time.
And, I fully intend to put in some things that aren't about the state of my paranoia in this ongoing episode.
Anyway. The test this morning made me feel a lot calmer. I'm actually doing something, which helps a great deal. Perhaps it's just the reality of it sinking in. I seemed to be able to work today.
I also told my boss. Not my immediate boss - she's on holiday for another 2 weeks so I werritted about it and thought, well if something happened in the next 2 weeks, I would need him to understand what was going on. So I did. And he was pretty cool, in fact.
So I ended up bringing Warren in to my "Circle of strength" (as opposed to Axis of evil). He was as ever a man of few words. But good ones. The circle of strength so far then consists of: Cherie, Yoz, Fiona, Danny, Anita and Warren.
Warren is a comics writer who is in that slightly unusual way, a friend entirely on the internet. I look after his mailing list. Well, lovely James set it up